|
Lovely | ||||
|
Category: Post-OotP Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Angst, Fluff Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: PG Reviews: 21 Summary: "Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." ~ C.S. Lewis Hitcount: Story Total: 5228 |
|
|||
|
Author’s Note: This story is inspired by the structure of the Everwood fanfic “Nine(teen)” by Vlada. Truly beautiful. Disclaimer: All things Harry Potter are creative property of J.K. Rowling. 1 She was a lovely baby. Her mum tells her this later on in her life, when she is old enough to understand, and part of her thinks that her mother is hopelessly biased in opinion. She is, after all, the only and youngest daughter of seven children. When strangers come across the Weasley clan, stare in awe and astonishment at the seven young, freckled faces, and ask questions with their eyes, mum and dad always respond that they enjoy a full and rowdy home with lots of love and never-ending excitement. They never give the answer that hovers in the air over the large group like a mist that never settles onto the ground. They never say that they desperately wanted a little girl with auburn curls and bright brown eyes who crawls on the floor of the rambling house with a tattered green blanket in one hand and a cloth doll in the other. But her mum insists that she was a lovely baby. She wasn’t stubborn like Bill, or frightfully alert and energetic like Charlie. Nor did she follow her around the house like a persistent and annoying shadow like Percy. She wasn’t a fraction as noisy and exasperating as her troublemaking twin brothers, who frequently hid things in odd places, knocked objects off of surfaces, and then stared up at their poor mother with the most angelic faces. And she wasn’t colicky like Ron, who always seemed to cry out when he felt like he was being forgotten in roomful of people. No, she was a darling little girl who often gurgled happily and giggled pleasantly, who fussed minimally and cried only when hungry or when her diapers needed changing. Even at this age, she understood the importance of being an undemanding infant. Her mother always seemed so exhausted and frazzled taking care of her brothers. 4 She was as pleasant as a small child as she was a baby. Tears are absent from her face when she scrapes her knee or doesn’t get her way. It feels wrong to cry in a houseful of boisterous boys who preferred to yell and shout when they were upset. She knows she is different from her brothers, and doesn’t want to lose their love and affection by emphasizing this difference. For the first few years of her life, the boys treat her like some sort of Muggle fairytale princess. Her oldest brothers never deny her piggyback rides when they are home to visit and even float her in the air when their parents aren’t watching. They tell her fantastic tales about a boy with a lightening bolt scar. Percy doesn’t scold her nearly as much as he scolds his younger brothers for misbehaving, and every once in a while he lets her get away with something small--like swiping the tiniest bit of frosting from a cake that is meant to follow supper. George and Fred sneak her sweets and playfully ruffle her hair, and like to make their baby sister laugh. And she always complies when they try to make her giggle, even when she doesn’t understand the jokes. Ron treats her the most nicely of all. He reads her stories from books as soon as he has mastered deciphering the odd shapes and forms, and when she shyly asks him one day to teach her this wonderful magic, he promptly does so and tells her that she’s the smartest witch in the world when she learns it faster than he did. When they are allowed, he drapes a large quilt over the long kitchen table and they crawl underneath with a lantern their mum has enchanted for them. In this pretend world of theirs, they mumble nonsense spells with sticks they find in the garden, pretending they are at Hogwarts with their big brothers. What she likes best, however, is when they sneak out to the garden shed and Ron “borrows” a broomstick for an hour or two. They run to a small clearing in the woods near their home where Ron carefully climbs onto the stolen treasure and slowly flys in small circles around where she sits in the center. “Do I look all right?” he always asks self-consciously. And she always answers that he looks fantastic, with the sincerity that only an admiring younger sister could muster. 10 Ron starts to act differently a few months before he is to leave for school. He doesn’t talk to her all that much and acts as if it is a pain to listen to her ramble on about the day’s current events or random ponderings. He won’t stick up for her when all of her brothers deem her not good enough to play Quidditch with them. He won’t let her hold Scabbers when Percy passes the old rat down to him. He hardly ever spends time with her. He thinks she is too giggly. When she tells their mum all of this, the woman replies that he’s probably just reached the age where he’d prefer the company of boys. And hearing this saddens her, but she doesn’t cry. But she cries the day he leaves on the Hogwarts Express for his first year. And although the twins’ jokes about sending her Hogwarts toilet seats and the sight of the train beginning to chug towards its destination fills her with mirth, it also upsets her that it is taking her brothers away from her, just as she had feared. So she both laughs and cries as she chases hopelessly after the train. And she begins to transfer her hero worship elsewhere, on the boy with the lightening bolt scar that sits in the compartment with her newly estranged brother. 11 Her first year at Hogwarts is her least favorite year. This is the year she begins to write in a curious old diary through which she confides in Tom, who listens to her patiently and comforts her when she is troubled and is the friend she doesn’t have anymore. She tells him how she hates it when her brothers tease her, how sad she is that Hogwarts doesn’t exactly match the fantasies that had danced around in her head for so long, how nervous she is about living up to the family name, how she feels like a stupid little girl with a stupid little crush when she is around a certain someone. And what he tells her robs her of what should be the happiest time of her life and continues to haunt her thoughts and dreams in the years that follow. When she awakes in the Chamber of Secrets to see Harry standing before her, his robes drenched in blood and his hand clutching the journal that had caused her so much pain and grief, she can’t stop her tears. She cries like she has never cried before and lets the sorrow pour out in large, unending waves. And when the tears finally subside, she vows never to be so foolish and vulnerable and cry again. Because it just costs her too much. 15 The promise she made to herself lasts barely four years. She is proud of herself for showing no pain whatsoever when that prat Michael Corner ran off to the arms of the ever popular Cho Chang because he was thick enough to think that one Quidditch game was worth an entire relationship. She liked him. Really liked him. And he had liked her. He liked her sportiness and sense of humor and strength, he had told her this more than once. She had refused to give into the ache threatening to swallow her entire chest and ruin this perception. She had worked so hard to construct the picture of a cool, confident, strong girl. So she held back the urge to cry and give him a bat-bogey hex he would never forget. Lying through her teeth, she told him it was all right, no hard feelings, they were better off as friends. Thus, it surprises her that the end of a mostly meaningless summer flirtation--a rebound with Dean by way of owl--brings her so much grief. She truly believes she is stronger than this. She hides herself in one of the filthier backrooms of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, crouching in a small space next to a rather old and ugly wardrobe that blocks her from view of the doorway. Her back is pressed up against the wall and she hugs her knees to her chest firmly, struggling to simultaneously suppress her sobs and not sneeze to death from the dust that surrounds her. She knows her sorrow is about more than Dean and Michael. Deep down she understands it is a pain that is deep and is not hers alone--it belongs to so many people who walk the halls and stand in the rooms of this lonely place. But she still feels foolish and pathetic. Even more so when she sees Harry’s trainers come into view. “Ginny?” she hears him say to her, his voice hesitant, uncertain… concerned. She refuses to transfer her gaze, continuing to focus on his sloppily laced shoes as if this unbroken concentration will keep her from falling apart. His feet remain still as he waits for an answer, and she is startled when they begin to walk towards her again. She hugs her legs even more tightly to her body as he squeezes in next to her in that tiny space. It is a tight fit, with their shoulders and the sides of their arms and legs crushed uncomfortably together. But neither moves for a long moment. It is when he awkwardly places his arm around her shoulders that she can’t hold back her tears any longer. Still hugging herself, she leans into him and cries with her check press up against his chest. She sobs and mumbles mostly unintelligibly about teenage boys who are complete wankers and scum-of-the-earth Death Eaters and the biggest bastard of them all and how she feels like the pain will not stop until it just consumes her and everyone she loves. He says nothing, only listens and uses his other hand to gently stroke her long hair. She feels like hours have passed before she finally regains her sense of composure. Suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment, she quickly pries herself from his arms and stands up. “I’m sorry, for bawling all over you and going on like that,” she apologizes, looking away and hastily wiping the moisture from her face with her hands “No, ‘s all right,” he replies, rising to his feet. “It was a bit nice, actually.” She sees him flinch and redden slightly. Before she can ask him to clarify, she hears her mum calling everyone down to the kitchen for supper. It takes her a while to understand what he meant. Lying in bed later that night, she plays the words over and over again in her head. And she realizes that it must be nice for him to finally be the one to comfort, rather than the one who is comforted. From that point on, she becomes less afraid of opening herself up to him. He is someone who truly knows pain, someone who can understand and comfort her and not pass judgment when she lets her weakness show. And he slowly starts to his reveal his own anxieties and worries. He grows to love her, and she him, flaws and fears and all. “You’re the loveliest girl I’ve ever met,” he tells her one day. And she believes him. |
| Reviews 21 |
|
